Happy Canada Day, hosers.
This morning, the Canada Day Moose came galloping down my chimbley and left me Crown Royal sacks of Canadian goodies. Maple syrup, milk in plastic bags, Alice Munro books, free health care, loonies and twonies, basketball, Timbits, people named Gord, Joni Mitchell’s Blue and a healthy dose of passive-aggressive politeness. Next year, I’m asking for power.

You may have noticed some changes on my website. Uh… okay, maybe you didn’t notice at all. Maybe you just came straight to this blog entry from the home page without looking at anything else. If you did… congratulations! You found my website. Now please tell other people to come here.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch: I’ve just added three new mp3s to the Spoken Word page: “The Jim Show”, “Iamsooffended?” and the uncensored version of “A Love Letter”. Listen and enjoy. And no, I don’t want to hear any complaints about the hooker line at the end of “A Love Letter”. All you’re doing is announcing to the world that you seriously need to get out more. If “A Love Letter” offends you, then I insist that you immediately listen to “Iamsooffended?”, just to get a sense of what you sound like to me.

Are you in Ottawa? Do you know anybody in Ottawa who likes spoken word and humour?
Because I’m going back there in a few weeks. I’ll be doing my fourth feature at the long-running Dusty Owl reading series. Sharing the stage with me will be Ottawa slam poet Just Jamaal, and there will also be an open mic for poetry and music.

Each time I’ve featured in this series, it’s just moved to a new venue. This time, it’s at the Mugshots pub in the Nicholas Street Jail Hostel. That’s right, Ottawa’s famous haunted hostel. Are you scared yet? Are you scared?

And one more thing before I go: It isn’t just Canada Day today. It’s also the fiftieth anniversary of the day when the Beatles recorded one of their most overrated songs, “She Loves You”, at Abbey Road Studios. And you know what that means: BUG MUSIC.